The Department of History presents - The 2026 Reichard Panel 

The Department of History welcomes back Gabe Chang-Deutsch '25, the 2025 winner of the Peter J. Reichard 1966 Memorial Research Award for the best honors thesis in History, to present a lecture on his thesis, "Nā Palapala Hoʻopiʻi: Petitions in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1868-1887." Chang-Deutsch will be joined in conversation by guest scholar Dr. Noenoe Silva of UHawaii, Manoa, followed by a Q&A.

"Nā Palapala Hoʻopiʻi: Petitions in the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1868-1887." In the 19th century,  residents & citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom utilized mass petitions to secure their interests in a moment of rapid political & economic change. These social documents dealt with many of the issues that structured contemporary Hawaiian politics, such as immigration laws, livestock ownership, & plantation labor relations. This thesis examines petitions in order to trace how Hawaiian subjects shaped their own experiences & political life. In the process, it argues that petitions are a powerful documentary record for understanding how Hawaiians imagined their rights, and created egalitarian customs in the late 19th century.